


Evergreen

by Merit



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 15:14:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4630041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merit/pseuds/Merit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The forest called, sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Evergreen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [florahart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/gifts).



She wore a bright yellow dress, but the skirts were divided and the sword at her waist looked well used. Kasia had made sure it was well used, even if she could use her strength against half a dozen men.

Kasia nodded at Sarkan and he looked dour as usual. Kasia hid her smile a she turned. Sarkan hadn’t struck her as the type who would particularly care about people smiling about him, at least after living a hundred years, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to see.

“And how’s Agnieszka?” She asked. Sarkan had already passed her three letters Agnieszka had written and Kasia had tucked them into a pocket. They had dashes of dirt of them, dark like the soil in the valley and Kasia could have bet coins that it had come from Agnieszka’s hands as she passed the letters to Sarkan. Despite the journey Sarkan looked remarkably clean, though she supposed that could be magic.

“The usual,” Sarkan said, “Befriending monsters and making the whole valley in awe of her. She doesn’t realise, of course,” he said, shaking his head to hide his fond smile. Kasia saw it and her next step was bouncier.

Kasia laughed. The last time she had visited, oh nearly a year now, Agnieszka had dragged her to the edge of the woods. Kasia had hovered at the boundary; saplings swaying towards Agnieszka, feeling the power of the wood reach out to her. She had shivered, because it had changed, it was calling out to her and Kasia was almost tempted to dig her toes into the dirt and spread her arms up to the sun.

She hadn’t, of course. Kasia had spent her entire life training to be the perfect servant for the Dragon. She had then dreamed, dreamed and longed for those ten years to pass in a moment so she could finally be free of the valley. She had spared a thought for Agniezka, but she probably would have been married with children by the time she was released. It wasn’t what she wanted but it would have meant their lives had shifted away from each other.

It hadn’t happened that way and maybe Agnieszka would still be humming, running her hand over a branch, flowers in her hair. Or maybe they would all be dead, Kasia thought darkly and she would have died in the tower as Sarkan’s magic was overtaken, the rest of the kingdom following.

“That does sound like her,” Kasia said, tilting her head so she was facing Sarkan again. The sun was warm on her back and she knew it left her face in shadow, like an old hollow. If he was disturbed, he didn’t show it, but then he had known her for years now. He probably had forgotten what she even looked like, before the woods had dug her fingers in Kasia’s flesh and made her anew. Kasia barely remembered now. Flesh was soft and she wasn’t.

“And the court?” Sarakan asked. He had been a courtier, a pet magician, before all this had happened, over a hundred years ago. He had turned his back on its foolishness but it was unwise to ignore events. And since the previous king had been killed, Sarkan had been at court more times than he had the previous century. Or so Kasia had been told.

“The prince will marry next summer,” Kasia said and Sarkan’s eyebrows shot up.

“Surely he’s still a boy...” He murmured, before shaking his head, a wry twist to his mouth. “Of course not,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “It scarcely seems ten years though. Ten years of almost peace.”

Kasia shrugged. Almost peace for him perhaps, but she had foiled three assassination attempts in that time, spent half a year in a foreign court scaring the daylights out of the ministers, thinking there were scores of her back in Polnya and wiped the tears off Marisha‘s face when she found out she was being sent away to be married. It was more than she had ever imagined as a girl, thinking she was doomed to spend ten years with the man next to her.

“Almost,” she said easily.

 

* * *

 

They had a room that overlooked the sea. Agnieszka had clapped her hands together in delight, ignoring the room entirely, and walking swiftly over to the window. She had breathed in the sea air deeply and they were high enough, far enough away from the docks that it was mostly a pleasant smell.

“And this is all yours, Kasia?” She murmured, “Oh how happy I am for you.”

“When I’m here, yes,” Kasia said, drifting over to Agnieszka. She touched her lightly on the elbow and soon they were embracing. “When I’m not here, I have rooms elsewhere. I’m quite the important person, I’m told,” she said, an edge of humour in her voice.

“I keep hearing about these marriage offers,” Agnieszka said, tracing Kasia’s jaw line with her finger. Kasia closed her eyes. She had changed utterly physically, but what she hadn’t expected, not in the initial rush of discovering just what her body was capable of, was how differently she would feel things. She had never been with a lover before, it wouldn’t have been acceptable, never in the valley. She sometimes speculated what it was like. She knew her limits now, but what if she never had to wonder.

Never had to worry, just the gentle flow of flesh pressing against flesh. A lover laughing, whispering secrets in her ear, their hair tangled together.

She drew Agnieszka closer, smiling at the hitch in Agnieszka breath as their bodies were pressed against each other. They rocked back and forth in the room, Agnieszka humming an old song.

“They’re nothing, they were nothing when they were first made to me and they’re nothing now,” Kasia whispered, she felt Agnieszka nod against her skin, what she called her skin. “They just want a bride strong enough to pick up a dozen pigs,” and that sent Agnieszka into a spurt of giggles.

“Oh, of course,” Agnieszka said, covering her mouth with her hand so Kasia could only see her eyes, dancing with humour, “Nothing about your beautiful face and your position in court.”

“It’s the pigs, I’m sure,” Kasia said and Agnieszka threw her head back, not bothering to hide her laughter now.

 

* * *

 

“Not yet,” Agnieszka said, because she was still young, she still had work to do. She smiled up at Sarkan, their bodies wrapped around each other. “But not forever.”

She slipped out of her home in the pre dawn light. It was autumn and already there were people stretching, picking up tools for the long day ahead of them. Agnieszka called out a greeting to them and they all waved back. It surprised her, sometimes, seeing children she had helped bring into the world, ushering their own children around. Agnieszka hummed a little song she had heard the past summer, when a troubadour had made himself very popular, it was upbeat and Agnieszka had laughed when she realised the song was about _her_.

Agnieszka had clapped her hands together, smiling and thanking the troubadour after he had finished. He had blinked at her in surprise and Agnieszka had thrown her head back, her hair still unlined with silver, but there were strands of chestnut and oak and ash.

“You didn’t think I was dead, did you?” Agnieszka had asked mirthfully, feeling slightly horrid for teasing the poor boy. The troubadour had shaken his head and Agnieszka realised he was awestruck. It happened sometimes, especially the children in the valley who lived far enough that Agnieszka only saw them twice or so a year, walking out of the woods, offering fruit.

Agnieszka exhaled deeply when she entered the woods and sang a little greeting. The trees, some who she had nursed from when they were saplings, rustled their leaves back, older ones creaking. She lost hours in the woods, sometimes, and it was long after the sun had set that Agnieszka emerged from the woods, her basket full of herbs, nuts and berries.

Sarkan was still there, buried in some of his papers. He had been visiting the city more often and it reminded Agnieszka of the time immediately after battle, when he had been needed there.

“There isn’t trouble, is there?” She asked, setting aside the berries and nuts for now, and hanging up the herbs. “I have enjoyed Kasia’s letters, she always writes so delightfully...” She gave Sarkan a steady look and the tips of his ears reddened. The previous night she had read out some of Kasia’s letters and well, it certainly had been inspiring.

Sarkan paused and then shook his head. “Another royal marriage,” he murmured, “A princess from the south. One of Alosha’s great great and so on grandchildren is her lady in waiting so she’s happy about that. She might have magic,” Sarkan shrugged.

“Already?” Agnieszka said. “They seem so young, still,” she murmured and Sarkan laughed.

“I once said the same thing to Kasia about the king’s wedding,” Sarkan said, shaking his head. “And now his son is getting married. These things happen quicker than you expect,” he said musingly.

Agnieszka hummed thoughtfully, moving to look out a window. The field had almost been harvested completely now and the outside had smelled like sweet wheat and hay. The forest was slowing down as well, releasing the last berries before so many of them slept through the winter. She shifted.

“Do you think of dying, Sarkan?”

“Not yet,” he said.

 

* * *

 

The forest was hemmed by roads now, protected, but forbidden from growing any further. Agnieszka couldn’t blame them, the country was growing bigger and people needed to eat but she missed the forest stretching, new saplings on the edge, life spring up under fingertips. The air was fresh and clean under the dark leaves above their heads and when Agnieszka breathed in, she felt new life and old life, and it reached out to her, calling to her. Her step picked up, a smile on her face as she walked deeper into the woods.

Kasia followed her silently, her face always grave when they were here. Sarkan followed with less good humour; age hadn’t wearied him but it certainly hadn’t improved his temper.

“Do you remember asking, Agnieszka,” and she turned at the sound of his voice, “If I ever thought of dying?”

She tilted her head to once side, Kasia watching her curiously.

“Oh that was a long time ago, Sarkan,” Agnieszka said, shaking her head. “I would have been,” and old woman, a voice popped up in her head, “Much younger,” she finished. “We were all so much younger then.”

“I felt like a young sapling back then,” Kasia murmured and Agnieszka nodded, before her eyes widened.

“Kasia!” She said in a mock scandalised tone. “Think of what the priests would say if you said _that_ in their presence.”

“I’m aged wood now,” Kasia continued, “I’d make a nice church mantelpiece.”

“Hmm,” Sarkan said, “I was under the impression that they had decided that you didn’t actually exist.”

“True,” Kasia said, “But I think they’d rather believe you didn’t exist, Sarkan. You always say something rather intimidating every time they suggest something. Or the royal advisors.”

Sarkan waved a hand dismissively. “Well if they suggested anything I hadn’t heard over the centuries, then,” and he shrugged, “I might have let them finish their sentence.”

“They’re very young, Sarkan,” Agnieszka said. “And if they read all of the old advisors notes, then they wouldn’t have any time for making decisions.”

Kasia and Sarkan shared a look.

“That might be best,” Kasia murmured.

They walked deeper into the forest, the floor ancient beneath them. It had taken decades for Agnieszka to finally purify the entire forest and even now she tilted her head, waiting for something to happen.

“Do you think about it now?”

Sarkan and Kasia stopped behind her. A moment passed and then Kasia placed a hand on the crook of her elbow, Sarkan followed, squeezing her shoulder. Their breathing seemed so loud in the forest.

“There’s so much to do,” Kasia said.

“I need to do so much,” Sarkan said.

Agnieszka nodded, looking further, hearing the forest call her name.

“One day,” she decided.


End file.
